1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to banking systems and services, and more particularly to systems and methods for facilitating the opening and closing of bulk accounts.
2. Background of the Invention
It is common practice in, e.g., real estate transactions to open, access and close bank accounts, such as escrow. In a fast-paced environment in which several real estate transactions might be closed or settled in a single day, a realty or law office may have to open, access and close several different escrow bank accounts corresponding to the respective transactions. This process requires extensive coordination between a bank and personnel in the realtor's office or law office, requires significant investment in time, and is prone to error due to the manual nature of the process.
More specifically, in the commercial real estate market, real estate companies are often required by law to deposit earnest money, put forth by a buyer, into a segregated account until the day of closing. On a typical day (in a busy season), it is not uncommon for a large commercial real estate office to open or close an average of 100 separate accounts. The annual average aggregate balance of these accounts can reach to the tens of millions of dollars.
Presently, customers (e.g., realtors, title companies) of banks are served through an extremely manual process. Documents with orders/information to open and close accounts are faxed back and forth between the bank and the customer, as well as internally within the bank. Reports are also often faxed to customers on a daily basis. In addition, various groups within the bank must manually input information into the bank's back end legacy systems, i.e., the systems that actually keep track of accounts and balances, to open the requested accounts. To close accounts in accordance with present processes, an agent of the bank must typically fill out several forms and literally stand in line for a teller to cut checks (e.g., for interest that may have accrued). When evaluated at a macro level, current processes roughly require one bank full time employee to open or close 30-40 accounts. Given the number of accounts that may need to be opened and closed in a given day (e.g., 100), this manual account management system quickly becomes too expensive and is not easily scalable (since, among other things, employees must be trained in the intricacies of the process).
The following enumerated steps comprise a typical process in accordance with present day operating procedures. As noted above, these processes are very manual and document intensive, leading to numerous opportunities for manual error. With the current procedures, accounts are opened as follows:                1. Bank accepts faxes/emails from Customers (realtors, law firms, title companies) to open escrow accounts        2. Bank assigns account numbers by placing stickers with account numbers on the fax or printed email and faxes information to other areas of the bank        3. Various groups in the bank enter portions of the data into the bank's back end legacy system and transfer money from the Customer's operating account to the newly created escrow accounts        
Due to the nature and sequence of the account transactions, the foregoing steps must be generally performed at certain times during the day. Namely, written instructions are received from a Customer by 9 am. Faxes with account numbers are distributed by 10 am. Accounts are opened within the back end legacy systems by noon, and money is transferred to the new escrow accounts at 2 pm. The process proceeds in this lock step fashion throughout the day to give the several banking groups involved enough time to resolve any resource issues. Typically, internal banking groups involved in the process rarely audit or validate any of the information received. The present day procedures have evolved as a means to manually input information into the appropriate back end systems to open and manage bulk accounts.
Typical present day procedures for closing accounts are as follows:                1. Bank accepts faxes or emails from Customers to close accounts        2. Bank agent fills out several forms to close accounts, including:                    a. Form to cut check to end customer (J. Doe) for Interest;            b. Form to move principal back to Customer's Operating Account; and            c. Form to close the Account;                        3. Bank agent visits a Teller and turns in forms        4. Teller manually closes accounts and cuts checks (as necessary)        
As can be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the efficiency of the foregoing procedure is dependant on the speed at which a Bank agent can manually fill out forms and a Teller can process forms. Indeed, it is not uncommon for Bank agents to wait several hours until a Teller becomes available.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need to provide more efficient, cost effective and scalable systems and processes for managing accounts, especially bulk account openings and closings that are often associated with, e.g., real estate transactions.